“You got it.”

‘You got it,’ he says,” Jack heard Abe snort behind him. “A fat-free bagel with tofu spread I’ll get.”

Jack stopped at a pay phone and dialed Nadia’s cell phone for the third time since he’d been back. Still no answer, so he tried her home number. A woman with a thick Polish accent answered. Nadia wasn’t home, she said. Jack picked up something in her voice.

“Is anything wrong, Mrs. Radzminsky?”

“No. Nothing wrong. Who is this?”

“My name is Jack. I…” He took a blind stab here. “I was helping her look for Douglas Gleason.”

“Doug has been found. He call this afternoon.”

Well, at least there was some good news today. “Did he say what happened to him?”

“My Nadjie go meet him, but she never call. She say she will call, and she always calls, but today she didn’t call.”

“I’m sure they’re just so glad to see each other that she forgot.”

“My Nadjie always call.”

“I’m sure she’ll check in soon.”

But as he hung up Jack knew he wasn’t at all sure. He’d never met this Doug but couldn’t imagine a guy looking to develop his own software would smash his computer and then go out for a two-day stroll. According to Nadia, both she and Gleason knew damaging details about GEM. And now no one knew where either of them were.

Maybe he’d find out before the night was through.

13

Jack was on the leading edge of rush-hour traffic so he and the Buick made decent time over to the GEM plant in the Marine Terminal area. Found a parking spot a few blocks away and wandered back to the GEM loading dock. A ten-foot Cyclone fence topped with razor wire separated him from the action where two-hundred-pound barrels stamped with gem pharma and tricef rode a conveyer belt into the rear of an 18-wheel semi. Heat-packing uniformed security guards patrolled the area.

Obviously a very valuable antibiotic.

Jack wished it were five hours from now with the sun down and night well settled in, but Nadia’s disappearance was urgently bumping him from behind. Daylight did have certain advantages, though.

Jack returned to his car, pulled the P-98 from its holster, and fitted the silencer to the barrel. Drove back to GEM and double-parked by the loading area. A quick glance around showed nobody on the sidewalks. He chambered a round, raised the window to the height he wanted, rested the pistol on it—with the front sight gone he needed all the aiming help he could get. Took a bead on the leading edge of a cardboard barrel just starting its conveyor ride, made sure no one was standing behind it, pulled the trigger.

The phut sounded loud in the car, but he knew it had been swallowed by the ambient street noise. Saw the target canister wobble on the belt. Bull’s-eye. Lowered the pistol and raised a pair of compact binoculars. Powder trickled from a tiny hole beneath the g in gem. Blue powder. Berzerk blue.